Review: Stella Donnelly’s Love and Fortune
Stella Donnelly
Love and Fortune
Dot Dash Recordings
Arriving some three years after the previous album, Flood, during which time Stella Donnelly’s musical resolve was seriously tested, Love and Fortune is a portrait of an artist who has experienced clear musical growth. Donnelly’s talent for astutely and evocatively commenting on and recapturing moments of great personal significance has long been her hallmark, but here these stories are elevated with more consistent and considered musicianship.
Opener Standing Ovation is redolent of the pop leanings of previous tracks like How Was Your Day?, but here it starts with the slow reflection of a troubled relationship, a theme that permeates much of the album. When it does kick off, it rides sweetly on the expert drumming of Marcel Tussie, whose work here is similar to that of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever—rarely showy but a constant force, propelling tracks along with a driving rhythm. It’s a characteristic that’s shared by the other musicians on the album, whose contributions are memorable for the space they allow as much as the colour they add.
Ultimately, however, it’s the songwriting and melodic strength that carry this wonderful album. At its centrepiece is Donnelly’s processing of the breakdown of a clearly important friendship, ultimately arriving at a point where she accepts the fact much of it remains unresolved and unanswered. Year of Trouble, one of this year’s more genuinely heartbreaking tracks and Love and Fortune’s standout, paints a vivid picture of the unmooring that comes with this lack of clarity. The emotional weight of the lyrics, where Donnelly laments not just the loss of her friend but the family as well, is rendered heavier still with a simple piano progression that builds and swells beautifully.
Through it all, however, is also a sense of self-reflection that ultimately ends in a degree of acceptance, not just of the situation but of her own foibles. Please Everyone recognises the folly of trying to be all things to all people as Donnelly reaches out across memories and landscapes to try to move forward. The pain and confusion may remain, but the sense of hopelessness does lift. Snippets of geographical and environmental reference also work effectively as anchor points, and Western Australian listeners will undoubtedly find strong resonance in the notion of crawling along Freeway North in Feel it Change.
Pinned to a particular time and situation, and faced with an inability to write about anything else, Love and Fortune is an album Donnelly had to make. And as much as she may have grappled with the wisdom of releasing it, this is not about apportioning blame or trying to right historical wrongs—it’s a deeply moving attempt to untangle and find meaning in an event that rarely has clear answers.
RICK BRYANT